"A blog is to a writer what a canvas is to an artist." ~ Colleen Redman

Archive for June, 2011

1. This is the time of year when I haven’t finished planting and am already harvesting. We’re eating swiss chard, summer squash, broccoli, beans, and blueberries. 2. Hours of time are eaten up in the garden so that we can eat. 3. When I go out to weed and find myself picking with nothing to […]

Gibby Waitzkin’s studio filled with the smell of lavender and rose when the homemade paper bookmarks, imbedded with homegrown flowers, came out of the press, sort of like when you pinch an herb to release its scent. She placed the bookmarks between pieces of paper and cardboard for us to take home, saying, “I’d like […]

1. “I feel like bluebirds are carrying pieces of silk fabric and floating them around my head when I’m with her.” ~ My son Josh about his girlfriend Katie. 2. We have a wren’s nest in our tree birdhouse, a phoebe nest on our porch rafter and an unknown nest inside the hardhat helmet worn […]

~ The following appeared in The Floyd Press on June 16th, 2011. The 10th annual Floydfest music festival kicks off six weeks from today. The Floyd Fandango Beer and Wine Festival is just two weeks away. Volunteers were busy last weekend preparing the 80 acre Blue Ridge Parkway site for the annual festivities. Along with […]

AKA: Mikephin Day It was an old school gathering of family and friends of the Zephyr community where Dolphin grew up. There were bagpipes playing (by Mike’s dad), people wearing fake mustaches, fresh halibut on the fire-pit, and smoked salmon from Alaska where Mike and Dolphin met and now live. Dolphin’s father Bob sang an […]

~ The following was published in The Floyd Press newspaper on June 9, 2011 and on the paper’s webpage HERE. The first electric car charger in Floyd County and maybe in the New River Valley is now located in the parking lot of the Hotel Floyd’s new addition. Kamala Bauers, one of the hotel owners, […]

1. I love this: Jeff Beck says he pretends he doesn’t know how to play the guitar everyday when he picks it up to play. 2. I just noticed that Bill Gates first name is in the word Billion. 3. Time to find something else to do besides renting movies in Floyd. The end of […]

_______________ Does Jasmine fear the sound of thunder from the grave? Does she care that a wild rabbit is living under the porch and nobody’s here to bark? _______________ Is my brother Dan who died too sick for the liver transplant list still mad at our brother who lies to our mother and she believes […]

~ The following (a slightly adapted version) appeared in The Floyd Press newspaper (as Musical Festival in Full Siwng) on June 9, 2011. National Music Festival (NMF) performances took place over a two week period at various locations in Floyd, including the Floyd Market Pavilion, Bell Garden and Gallery, the elementary school gymnasium, the high […]

Sometimes I follow Kari Kovick around. I’m a fan of her work teaching music to young children and as a member of the band Windfall. I’ve documented her children’s music programs for the local paper in the past and written about Windfall for the Floyd Compass (a one time visitor’s guide). Recently, I spent some […]

1. It took going to the National Music Festival solo classical musical performances at the Floyd Country Store last Thursday night to force me to figure out how to mute the beep on my camera. 2. We have a computer chair in my office room that’s adjustable for height, which allows me to shout out […]

About

From the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia I write to synthesize what I'm learning at the time, whether it be poetry, a political commentary, or a letter to my mother in Hull, Massachusetts, where I'm originally from. Whenever I don't know exactly what it is I'm doing and it borders on wasting my time, I call it research. 'Dear Abby, How can I get rid of freckles?' was my first published piece at the age of 11.